


Honest to god I will break your heart

by smaragdbird



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bickering, Developing Relationship, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Jealousy, M/M, Robot/Human Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:39:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27095935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: Five times K-2SO was shot to protect CassianAnd one time Cassian got shot to protect K-2SO
Relationships: Cassian Andor/K-2SO
Comments: 9
Kudos: 46
Collections: Fic In A Box





	Honest to god I will break your heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nununununu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/gifts).



The first time K-2SO took a blaster shot for him happened only a few hours after Cassian had finished reprogramming him. Cassian didn’t even notice. They had been busy running for their lives so when K-2SO shoved him forwards, Cassian was more annoyed than anything else. 

Only when they had reached the shuttle and jumped into hyperspace, K-2SO turned to Cassian and loudly declared, “I hope the Rebellion already appreciates what I’m sacrificing for them.”

“Guard duty on a naval base at the arse-end of nowhere?” Cassian muttered more to himself than to K-2SO.

“I got shot for you!” K-2SO sounded indignant. So much so that the tone registered with Cassian before the actual words did.

“You did what?”

“I prevented you from being hit with a blaster bolt that had a 6.5% chance of causing a light injury, 2.3% chance of causing a severe injury, and a 0.1% chance of causing death.” 

To prove his point, K-2SO held out his arm. There was a bit of soot on one edge which was easily wiped away with a flick of Cassian’s hand. “You were saying?”

“My calculations were still correct.”

“Please tell me you’ve got more skills than being a slightly better calculator than the one on my holo-pad.”

It was the first, and only, time K-2SO ever refused to speak to him for any given length of time.

/

The second time K-2SO got shot for him, he did actually get shot. It wasn’t just a graze that had left a soot mark on his arm. Of course, by the second time K-2SO caught a blaster bolt for him, they had already been working together for three years. They were friends or so the general consensus around base seemed to be.

“Ow”, K-2SO complained once they had cleared the Imperial base, they had successfully infiltrated but less successfully retreated from.

“You don’t even have pain receptors”, Cassian said and shot him a half-hearted glare for good measure.

“Your ingratitude towards my noble sacrifice is what hurts me”, K-2SO replied, poking at the hole the blaster had left in his lower central chassis.

“There’s a repair kit in the back. Why don’t you patch yourself up once we’re in hyperspace?” Cassian suggested. “And stop touching that.”

“I saved you from an injury that had a 13.4% chance of killing you and you want me to patch myself up?”

Despite himself, Cassian could feel the corners of his mouth twitch at K-2SO’s indignant, overly dramatic tone. “Fine, get me those hyperspace-jump calculations and I’ll patch you up myself. Is that gratitude enough for you?”

“How about you give me a blaster instead so I can shoot back next time?” 

“Not going to happen, Kay”, Cassian shook his head with a smile.

/

The third time, it was less a blaster that K-2SO saved Cassian from and more a grenade that some kriffin idiot of rebel had tossed at Cassian thinking he was an Imperial. To be fair, he had been wearing an Imperial uniform at the time but considering that the grenade had been thrown by the team meant to extract him, he still chalked it up to idiocy. 

K-2SO had seen the grenade first and had tossed him out of the immediate blast range by picking him up and throwing him with great enthusiasm. 

It had saved his life, so Cassian couldn’t really be cross with him, although it had not saved him from the concussion caused by the shockwave following the blast, or the horrifying realisation that K-2SO’s last known location was nothing but a crater.

To his relief he managed to find K-2SO at the edge of said crater, his legs blown off but otherwise he seemed intact. His photoreceptors were still bright and he was pulling himself forward by his arms when Cassian reached him.

“You’re okay?” He asked, instinctively running his hands over K-2SO’s head and body to check if he had any more injuries than the obvious.

“Do I look ‘okay’ to you?” K-2SO asked back, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “But there was no damage to my circuits as far as I can tell. However, my self-diagnosis program has a failure rate of 0.0013% under ideal conditions.”

“That high, huh?” Cassian replied, grabbing K-2SO’s arms to pull him towards the evacuation shuttle. He wasn’t strong enough to carry him.

“Shoddy imperial programming”, K-2SO muttered, more to himself than to Cassian. “We should join the Collective.”

“I’m not a slicer”, Cassian said as if K-2SO needed a reminder of that. Also he doubted that the galaxy’s most notorious slicer group would look kindly on K-2SO’s independence. Not that the Alliance was concerned with droid-rights either but at least no one had forced him to reprogram K-2SO yet.

“You could be my henchman”, K-2SO suggested.

“Brush you with oil every day and bring you the heads of your enemies?” Cassian panted because K-2SO wasn’t exactly light and the muddy ground didn’t help. “Tell you what, if we survive the war, I’ll consider it as a secondary career option.”

“There is a 77.3% chance you’re lying”, K-2SO informed him.

“You also told me there was only a 23% chance I would survive the next twenty missions when we met. That was 65 missions ago”, Cassian replied and threw a look over his shoulder to get the attention of the extraction team. The least they could do for throwing a grenade at them was to help him drag K-2SO to the shuttle.

“You’re a statistical outlier.”

“Just leave that thing”, the very same rebel that had thrown the grenade in the first place told him when he reached Cassian’s side. “We’re on a tight schedule.”

Cassian would’ve ignored him in any case, but he spared his breath because Kx droids, even legless ones, weren’t meant to be dragged by one person.

“You can get another one in a dozen military installations across the outer rim alone”, the grenade-tossing-idiot continued instead of helping Cassian.

“10 in the Outer Rim to be exact”, K-2SO replied. “16 in the Mid Rim and 25 in the Inner Rim. 12 in the Core. Kx droids are only found in facilities security class 3 or higher.”

“Is that really important right now?” The idiot asked.

Cassian rolled his eyes. As if K-2SO would ever miss an opportunity to correct an organic no matter how uncalled the situation was. He had once done it to Admiral Cracken because the third decimal point of fuel calculations on the 6th page of a 60-page report had been wrong.

The memory still made Cassian smile even though it had resulted in K-2SO being banished from all future meetings with Cracken and had been forced to an outpost-building mission on Yavin IV which by extension had included Cassian as well. Yavin IV was a jungle moon. Cassian hated jungles.

“If you helped Captain Andor to pull what remains of me after your clumsy attempt on his life, we would reach the shuttle 23.7 seconds faster”, K-2SO pointed out.

“He looked like an Imperial”, the idiot muttered, but he did start to help. “How was I supposed to know?”

Cassian caught sight of K-2SO rolling his photoreceptors and had to bite the insides of his cheeks to keep from laughing out loud.

/

Somehow Cassian managed to keep calm between K-2SO getting shot in the chest, a clean hit that took him straight down, and finding another Kx droid, shooting it, butchering it for parts and patching them into K-2SO’s chest. 

His hands only started shaking once he had connected all of the lines to the new central processing unit and pulled them out of K-2SO’s chassis.

“Kay?” His voice was shaking, too. His breath came rapidly and uneven. What if it hadn’t worked? What if there was something wrong with Kay that he couldn’t fix? What if – 

“Cassian?” 

“Kay?”

“What happened Cassian? Why do I have a new CPU?”

“You got shot.” Relief was flooding his body but that only made his hands shake harder. Cassian folded them into his lap to keep them hidden.

“Again? I should’ve never left the Empire. I’ve been shot four times as much since I joined the Rebellion”, K-2SO complained, sitting up.

“You were shot three times”, Cassian corrected him.

“I’m counting the grenade”, K-2SO informed him. He stood up, shook his arms then his legs and wiggled his fingers. “Your job was adequate.”

“Just adequate? You’re breaking my heart, Kay, I thought I deserve better than ‘adequate’”, Cassian said, the sarcasm helping to keep his voice from shaking like his hands.

“There are 25 bones in the human chest counting the ribs, but the heart isn’t a bone so technically it cannot be broken.”

“Figure of speech, Kay.”

“I know but why?” K-2SO tilted his head as if he was genuinely interested in the answer. “Emotions like thoughts are generated in the brain, not the heart.”

“Because the heart is where it hurts when it happens.”

“What does it feel like?” K-2SO asked.

Like watching you get shot in the chest for me, Cassian thought but instead he said, “Like you’re drowning but you’re just won’t fucking die.”

“That’s not helpful, Cassian. I cannot drown either.”

“Well, then maybe you’re immune to heartbreak.”

/

“Cassian, I’m fine”, K-2SO said for the 4th time.

“You’re fine?” Cassian whirled around, his voice seething with anger. “If you’re fine, why did I have to patch the lines in your chips? It’s an emergency measure – you’re not fit for duty.”

“I assessed your work, and it is good enough” K-2SO replied, through there was hesitation in his tone as if he hadn’t been prepared for Cassian’s fury.

“Good enough? You fucking died Kay. I had to drag your body to the shuttle without knowing if I could save you.” Cassian’s whole body was shaking with rage, hands balled into fists that he kept stiffly at his side. “You’re not invincible.”

“Neither are you, Cassian. You need to rest.” K-2SO reached out to him stiffly. Being hunted by the Empire for blowing up their Death Star meant that the Alliance was short on everything, not just spare Kx droid parts. 

“I’m fine”, Cassian said but he didn’t shrug off K-2SO’s hand from his shoulder. He had been terrified for too long if K-2SO would ever touch him again.

“If you’re fine then so am I”, K-2SO replied. 

“That’s not how this works, Kay. You need parts, I need – “

“ – rest”, came Bodhi’s voice from the door. 

Cassian was grateful for Bodhi saving all of their lives on Scarif but this didn’t concern him. If he was being honest, he was also perhaps a little bit jealous of the easy friendship that had developed between Bodhi and K-2SO.

But that was only a tiny, insignificant part of it. 

Really.

“Both of you do as long as Kay’s battery is damaged”, Bodhi finished and walked inside. 

Maybe Bodhi using Cassian’s nickname for K-2SO also bothered him.

“How are you?” K-2SO asked, turning towards Bodhi.

“I’m good, don’t worry about me”, Bodhi smiled. “I’ve brought the charging cable you asked for.”

It was possible that the jealousy Cassian was feeling wasn’t quite as insignificant as he would like to pretend.

“Thank you.” When K-2SO touched Bodhi’s shoulder, Cassian had to look away.

“No need to thank me, try to get some rest, both of you”, Bodhi replied cheerfully and departed as quickly as he had appeared. 

“What was that about?” Cassian asked, trying and failing to sound neutral.

In response, K-2SO shoved the charging cable into his arms. “If I charge next to your bed, will you actually get some rest?”

“Only if you promise not to get up without me”, Cassian replied. 

“I didn’t even want to leave Scarif without you, why do you think I’d leave you now?” 

Cassian didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he hadn’t wanted to leave Scarif without Kay either, so maybe he didn’t to be jealous of Bodhi after all.

/

Cassian woke up in the med bay. His last memory was a stormtrooper and Kay and – when he tried to sit up, there were stiff bandages around his middle. Bacta bandages. Had he gotten shot? He couldn’t remember. And he was unable to get his bearings because fate had it that Draven walked into the med bay in just this moment.

“Andor, you’re awake. Good. Not sure what you did, but your droid’s been throwing a hissy fit ever since he brought you back.” Draven watched the mortification on Cassian’s face with amusement and added, “He told me to remove you from operations as well. Something about your intelligence being too low to be a spy if you think you’re better equipped to take a blaster shot with your body than him.”

Going by the look on Cassian’s face that had been true then. “I can explain, sir.”

“That’s what your mission report is for. Right now I need you to speak with your droid. He’s been scaring the crap out of people on base with his muttered threats against you.”

Part of Cassian wanted to say that that was nothing new, but it would be a lie. K-2SO had never threatened him, only gave him intimidating statistics about his mortality presented with utter glee. 

Draven gave a sign and Cassian was treated to the spectacle of Jyn, Bodhi, Baze and Chirrut shoving an unwilling K-2SO through the door that Draven then closed behind him. Cassian thought he heard the lock tighten too.

“You’re the most incompetent, useless, idiotic, fragile meat bag I have ever had the misfortune of encountering!” K-2SO yelled at him immediately. “I am a droid.” He put emphasis on every word. “Your squishy organic body is not made to stop blaster fire. Quite the opposite in fact. What in all the stars name possessed you to think that you’d survive a blaster bolt that I wouldn’t? You’re even stupider than the idiot who tossed a grenade at us. You almost died! What were you thinking?”

“Would you have missed me?” Cassian teased, knowing it’d only infuriate K-2SO further – and hide how much he wanted to know the answer.

“Not at all.” K-2SO turned his head to the opposite side of the room.

“Liar.” Cassian grinned.

“I am not.”

“Is that why you took five blaster bolts for me? Because you don’t care about me?”

“Four bolts and a grenade.”

“Whatever. You know what I mean.”

“Fine. I care about you. Unfortunately. Because you are the most – “

“I care about you, too”, Cassian interrupted him before K-2SO could start enough tirade. “That’s why I did it. It was my turn to save you, Kay.”

K-2SO loomed over him. “We do not take turns with this. I take the blaster fire, you patch me up afterwards. Those are our roles. Understood?”

“Or what?”

K-2SO cradled his face with both hands, which made Cassian’s heart rate speed up significantly. 

“Or I will find new and creative ways to punish you”, K-2SO replied, resting his forehead against Cassian’s. 

“That’s not much of a counter-incentive”, Cassian said, grinning from ear to ear as he wrapped his hands around K-2SO’s wrists to keep him where he was.

“I was scared, Cassian”, K-2SO told him, leaning slightly back to look him in the eyes. His tone was unusually sombre. “Don’t do this again.”

“I cannot make that promise. You know that.”

“You’ve been a statistical outlier all this time. Don’t stop now.”

“I don’t think that’s up to me but I’ll try my best.”

“Your best has been enough so far, so I’ll take it.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you always have to have the last word?”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

Cassian let him have it.


End file.
